Ray Crisis Import Review

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Find out what we think of the Japanese version of Taito's latest vertical shooter for the PS.

By IGN Staff

Let's face it: Your standard vertical and horizontal shooters are a dying breed. The mainstream gaming public doesn't even give them a second look, or even a first, and support from the so-called hardcore fan base is so minimal that even the best of them fail to reach any sort of respectable sales levels in the United States. Luckily for fans of the genre, Japanese developers keep pumping them out and despite the less than stellar U.S. sales, most of them seem to find their way Stateside.

The latest scrolling shooter to find itself on the top console system in Japan is Ray Crisis, which is Taito's follow-up to the moderately successful Raystorm. While it didn't earn the respect of shooter enthusiasts for its middle-of-the-road gameplay, Raystorm was heralded as a visual tour de force, becoming one of the most graphically stunning games on the PlayStation at the time of its release.

Ray Crisis does its predecessor justice as it also features some amazing 3D polygonal graphics that just aren't done any justice in screenshots or stills. As was the case with Raystorm, the backgrounds in Ray Crisis are comprised of huge multidimensional polygonal objects, with several scrolling layers, and an insane amount of colorful transparencies, and lighting effects. To top it all off the explosions and weapon effects are equally as striking.

The game moves at a fairly solid framerate, but as the case with just about every scrolling shooter ever made, it does suffer from a few cases of slowdown. The slowdown mainly occurs against the game's bosses, with the final boss being the guiltiest. While there's not really a good excuse for slowdown, it's actually welcome in the boss encounters because the slowdown can be somewhat helpful when the screen is full of nothing but bullets.

Even with all of the game's beautiful eye-candy, it doesn't save it from being a second-rate shooter. Ray Crisis is your basic 2D vertical-scrolling shooter, with gameplay mechanics that aren't enhanced much over its predecessor, Raystorm, and a simple two-mode set-up.

There are two play modes offered, Original Mode and Special Mode. The Original Mode offers players the chance to pick the three levels that he/she wishes to participate in and, oddly, it's possible to pick the exact same level three times. Meanwhile, the Special Mode has the players play through a predetermined set of levels where they start off the game with zero lives and no continues. Extra lives can be earned throughout the game, but once the player runs out of them, the game is over.

In either mode, the gamer is given the chance to pick between three differently equipped ships, called Wave Runners. The three ships are called the WR-01R, WR-02R, and WR-03, and are each equipped with a different main gun and have different lock-on abilities. In addition to the main gun and lock-on attacks, each ship is outfitted with a special attack weapon that can be fired once the special attack gauge is at full strength.

While the game should quench the thirst of players needing a new twitch game, it really doesn't stand-up to the competition on PlayStation. Compared to Einhander, G Darius, Thunder Force V, and R-Type Delta, Ray Crisis' gameplay feels second-rate. It just doesn't have the variety of weapons or power-ups that are offered in all of the aforementioned game and when you put it up against any one of them, side-by-side, it might seem a bit boring.

Nonetheless, it's hard to be picky when you're a fan of shooters and the chances are that you've played the ones you own to death already. So, if you're in need of a shooter fix and don't mind the fact that it's not as good as the PlayStation's best in the genre, then go ahead and give Ray Crisis a try. Despite its lack of pizzazz in the gameplay department, it's still not a bad game and is definitely worth a try. You just might want to avoid paying full price for it.